NMS leaker has finished the game: here's his feedback

[Legend]

Thought this deserved its own thread since it's essentially a review 9 days out from release.

Well, I made it. Here are some notes on where I'm at with the game right now. : NoMansSkyTheGame

This will be as spoiler-free as it can be, and anything I discuss here is so minimal of a spoiler that it should be disregarded.

So, I've reached the center. For now, I'll just keep it a secret. I realize it is "the secret" of the game and I'm sure other people will spill the beans for clickbait sooner than later, so fear not fellow spoiler hounds - someone out there will feed your appetite I'm sure.

I just want to dispel some misconceptions right now and clear the air on a few things before I (finally) sleep.

The Atlas Stone thing is not an "exploit." I was careful to word this so as to not spoil some stuff surrounding it, but please stop insinuating as if I found some game breaking cheat/exploit and abused it. This is NOTHING of the sort. The location of the Stones/Fuel is VERY specific, it's a VERY important location / theme in the game, none of this is by chance and they clearly meant to make it special. I said I PERSONALLY disagree with the design choice, but it's there for now and it is what it is.

The free Fuel doesn't bother me nearly as much as the units gained by the Stones. The pacing was going okay until I ran in to these and then it just skewed everything for me. Here, I'll give you hard numbers - I was selling stacks of rare resources for 20-30K. Uncommon ones maybe 5-10k. Atlas Stones sell for 275K...

Yes, there was life on every planet. Every single one. But, keep in mind, the life itself VARIED dramatically - when I found life on the "Fauna: None" planets, it was seriously stupid shame like prairie dogs. I wasn't encountering giant rhinos or anything. I THINK, although I could be wrong, but I THINK Sean's "90% of planets are bone dry" comment was in reference to planets LOADED with life. Or they just changed their mind last second - who knows.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, I have done A LOT of what the game has to offer. I actually intentionally took time out of my warp jumping over the course of going to the middle to explore planets to break up the monotony of it. This does not mean I have done all of the major events, however - I am still yet to swim to the bottom of a big ocean. I am still yet to destroy a space station. I definitely still have stuff to do.

Another gripe I have right now with the claims on the game before release is this whole "it gets weirder the closer to the middle you get." If you're like me, you expected some seriously obvious inclinations that this was happening as you progressed, and for me... I haven't seen much in the way of difference as I went. The ONLY ONLY ONLY big difference, and honestly the only reason I pushed it so hard, was the weapon crates you saw in the Trade video with the guns for trade improve in quality as you go further in. So, for me, my basic logic was... the sooner I get to the area at the middle, the sooner I have the best multi tool, so why wait?

Here's a HUGE gripe for me at the moment. I'm going to list some bugs at the bottom and I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but holy shame has this been annoying. I've "upgraded" my suit to unlock all available inventory slots possible. I've found and bought what I "think" is a multi tool with the maximum amount of slots available in the game. However, ships HAVE NOT IMPROVED AT ALL throughout the entire course of the game. This is not a joke. I am at the point now where my PERSONAL SUIT has something like 3-4x the total inventory / module slots as my fudgin ship. That seems wrong to me.

There are bugs. Quite a few in fact. In some moments I really start to feel as if this game would have benefited from a beta test. PRAY for a Day 1 patch, not only to nerf the sale cost of Atlas Stones but also to address some of this shame too:

Currently, Beam Upgrades for your multi tool seem broken and dog backwards. Upgrades that are supposed to slow down the heat up of your beam, actually speed it up. Upgrades that are supposed to speed up the mining speed of the beam, actually slow it down. Essentially, your STARTING beam is as powerful as it can be, and if you upgrade it with +1 +2 +3 beam upgrade modules it becomes UNUSABLE. This would, in theory, mean that the fully upgraded beam is actually the beam you're supposed to START with, which would mean my early exploration would have gone a LOT slower.

Sea creatures spawn in shallow water completely vertical stuck in the ground. This isn't like a one time bug thing either, 80% of the large sea creatures have spawned this way, which is a super bummer for me because sea creatures are my favorite and I can't even appropriately scan them or even naked eye view them when this happens.

I've had the game full on crash to PS4 menu something like 20 times now. Usually when I'm warp jumping. No joke. Save your game a lot kids, you'll be pissed if you don't.

Again, not finding ship upgrades has been super frustrating. Is it a bug? Is the game not spawning better ship module inventories like it's supposed to? Are we actually just supposed to have ships with 1/4th the total inventory of our suit? What gives HG, c'mon.

This entire post isn't even actually a review or anything, this is just addressing a lot of major points people keep bringing up. Once I complete other things like engaging in big scale battles, I'll make a final review.

Oh, and I didn't even pop a trophy for hitting the center. C'mon man...

EDIT: Some people want some quick positives, so stealing some I wrote down below:

While I still haven't found a planet flush with Plants and Fauna as some of the trailer planets (I'll attest this to Sean's claim of those super full and awesome planets being a REALLY low chance to find) I will say that the terrain and overall vibe of the planets has been surprisingly refreshing. I never really have moments where I land on a planet and say, "Oh no, not this one again." They have a lot of variables in the procedural - even the most mundane things like coloring can mean a world of difference. One planet may seem VERY different from another simply because one is purple and another is yellow - you don't notice the similarities as much this way.

Everything is very smooth. The space combat, the entering / leaving your ship, the warp jumps, all of it just feels really sharp while you're playing. I really enjoy the space flight, it's quick enough that I don't sit around twiddling my thumbs but it's long enough at times where I legit feel like I'm traversing a realistic space-distance.

The noises and sound in this game are some of the best I've ever experienced. The animal noises are incredible. They set the mood in such fantastic ways - you'll hear them from quite a ways off and it really sets the tone for that planet. It's very immersive.

[the-pi-guy]

Does he say how many planets he visited?  

[Legend]

Does he say how many planets he visited?  

Not that I've seen. He's maxed out his reputation with all three factions and has fully upgraded everything though.

[the-pi-guy]

Not that I've seen. He's maxed out his reputation with all three factions and has fully upgraded everything though.

I wonder if he just got lucky and didn't see any bare planets.  Or there could be some sort of bias with certain areas.  Like regions where it's mostly life filled planets.  


Will be interesting to see if they changed their mind on it or if it's just something else.  

[Legend]

I wonder if he just got lucky and didn't see any bare planets.  Or there could be some sort of bias with certain areas.  Like regions where it's mostly life filled planets.  


Will be interesting to see if they changed their mind on it or if it's just something else.  

He said that planets say they have no life on the scanner, but in reality they still have smaller animals.

[the-pi-guy]

He said that planets say they have no life on the scanner, but in reality they still have smaller animals.

Weird.  

[DerNebel]

Well props to the guy for actually giving critical impressions and lol at that whole community, they were in desperate need of a wakeup call like this.

[Legend]

Well props to the guy for actually giving critical impressions and lol at that whole community, they were in desperate need of a wakeup call like this.

Don't worry. Some of them are thinking the leaked copy was a press copy that was printed before the delay. Hence the inside ad saying June 21st.

Weird.  

A past IGN video had the narrator describe one planet as "barren" even though it had a lot of life on it. They assumed it was just IGN being stupid, but I guess NMS really likes putting life everywhere.




Also in some comments I read the leaker talking about multiple galaxies. It seems that reaching the center allows you to go to additional galaxies, but each additional one is just replaying the game with a new seed or something like that. I'm inferring this here, but it seems 18 quintillion is the number of planets for every galaxy combined.

EDT: he also never died  

[DerNebel]

Don't worry. Some of them are thinking the leaked copy was a press copy that was printed before the delay. Hence the inside ad saying June 21st.

I guess the denial will keep going until they have the game in their hands.

But that's what happens when you set unrealistic expectations on a game and hype it to the high heavens without ever having touched it. You can't let your hype get out of hand no matter what the game is, keeping that in mind will save you many headaches and dollars.

Now excuse me I gotta go jerk off to all Persona 5, which will be the biggest revelation gaming has ever experienced, trailers again.

[Raven]

I guess the denial will keep going until they have the game in their hands.

But that's what happens when you set unrealistic expectations on a game and hype it to the high heavens without ever having touched it. You can't let your hype get out of hand no matter what the game is, keeping that in mind will save you many headaches and dollars.

Now excuse me I gotta go jerk off to all Persona 5, which will be the biggest revelation gaming has ever experienced, trailers again.

*grabs binoculars*

[DerNebel]

*grabs binoculars*

Pay, if you wanna watch you pervert.

Also regarding the game, I still think people that are looking at this and saying it looks like a $20 game are being ridiculous. $40? Sure. $30? Maaaybe. But $20 for a game like this, brand new in 2016? You guys are crazy.

[Legend]

Does he say how many planets he visited?  

40-50

[Max King of the Wild]

Sounds bad like I thought

[Legend]

I'm really really confused about the shape of the galaxies. It seems that they are linear? Like you start on one end of a tube and travel to the other end. Huh? Pretty sure the leaker is describing it poorly.


EDT: someone made this pic to describe it.

[Legend]

I guess the denial will keep going until they have the game in their hands.

But that's what happens when you set unrealistic expectations on a game and hype it to the high heavens without ever having touched it. You can't let your hype get out of hand no matter what the game is, keeping that in mind will save you many headaches and dollars.

Now excuse me I gotta go jerk off to all Persona 5, which will be the biggest revelation gaming has ever experienced, trailers again.

Oh gosh, even the mods are trying to deny it: We have collected some evidence that the leaked copy may be a stolen demo or non-final developer copy. : NoMansSkyTheGame

This is only going to end in a train wreck for fudge sake. Accept it has bugs, hope for a patch, and move on. (when it turns out those mods are correct, I'll deny making this post)